Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider Status and Prospects*Derek I. LowensteinBrookhaven National Laboratory, USAThe Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is the centerpiece of the nuclear physicsprogram at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The physics program encompasses bothheavy ion physics and spin physics with polarized protons. A series of three acceleratorsprovide the ions for injection into the two counter-rotating RHIC accelerator-colliderrings. A fourth machine, the proton linac, provides polarized protons to the injector chain.Figure 1 is a photograph overview of the accelerator complex and Figures 2 and 3 de-scribe the ion and polarized proton configuration respectively.

Figure 1.

RHIC has been designed to accelerate and collide all ion species from protons to ura-nium. We are presently limited to a mass of gold by the tandem preinjector limitations.RHIC has accelerated and stored gold ions for data taking from the injection energy of 10GeV / nucleon to a maximum of 100 GeV / nucleon. Polarized protons have been deliv-ered at 100 GeV for physics data taking. Most of the design parameters of RHIC have*Work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy.